Do You Want To Start an Online Business? Going from an employee to an employer can be one of the most freeing and terrifying things an entrepreneur experiences. You may be working your nine to five and feeling a little bit under appreciated. You may be feeling as though you are on the brink of something larger. Do you have a skill that you have been honing in on your free time? Perhaps you have been working on an apothecary in a spare bedroom. Are essential oils something you enjoy and you have been mixing fragrances. Maybe you enjoy making cruelty free cosmetics on the weekends and sharing your makeup application tips with friends and family. Your side hustle doesn’t have to be crafty either. Maybe you are artistic and do web design for friends and perhaps receive payments from other startup businesses for your skills. These are all skills that you could share with the public if you decided to start your own online business.
Do Online Businesses Succeed?
In short, yes. If you have ever heard of Doe Deere then you know exactly how popular one brand can become from a little bit of imagination, a lot of dedication and some genius online marketing techniques.
Doe Deere is the founder of Lime Crime cosmetics. She created her cosmetic business on a whim. She was designing clothing and had established an online eBay store. While accessorizing models in her designs she realized there was a lack of colour variety in the cosmetic industry. She has always been an avid animal lover and wanted to create some products that reflected her personal beliefs that cosmetics should be vegan and cruelty-free. She established funding and started with one simple lip colour line. Her team of dedicated scientists worked with her cruelty free requirements and created the colorful products she wanted to introduce to the world. Her marketing didn’t stop at creation. She knew that hard work and intense online marketing would be necessary to spread the word about her new cosmetic line. She instantly created an Instagram account and took to the masses. She would feature color give away contests and encourage her followers to post pictures of them wearing her product. She gave beauty tips and also requested beauty tips from her loyal customers. This marketing strategy was genius because it invoked the public to take part in her company. As her brand popularity grew she was able to create more products I her product line. She recently merged with another business to bring her cosmetics to beauty counters across the United States and the United Kingdom.
This is just one example of how a startup company can succeed in today’s online marketplace. Up until this year, her product was only available online.
How Will You Market Your Online Business To Draw In Customers?
This is a very good question to consider. You may have a business name in mind and a product ready to mass produce but how exactly will you market your product? There are many ways to spread the word about your product but you need to not only gain popularity but also acquire a loyal customer base. You can pay for advertisements on social media pages or you can crowdsource. Crowdsourcing is one of the most popular ways to share your business online. Crowdsourcing requires sharing of your business by people who frequent your page. Often businesses will offer a free product or service to a lucky person who shares a social media post. The items given away may be a good that your business makes or a service that they provide. If your online store sells handbags you may be offering a gift certificate towards a purchase or a free hand bag to one lucky person who shares and comments on your post. The same is true if your business provides a service. In these cases the service is often limited/restricted to people who live within a certain area of the business.
How Will You Make Online Shopping Easy For Your Customers?
You will need to have an established website that is fully operational. If you are selling any type of product you will need to have established an online payment option with easy to understand check out instructions. If you are offering a service such as a web design, pet or child care services, home services like landscaping or monthly treatments for lawns or pests you will want to set up a monthly fee financing option. This option will allow your customers to be billed monthly for your services or pay a one-time fee. In some cases, financing may be optional through your banking institution. It is also important to be aware of any online fees you may pay for your online payment feature.
End Result
No matter what type of online business you decide to open you will need to establish a loyal customer base. To achieve this you will need to have an easy to navigate a web page and a simple bill payment or check out option for your customers. Once you have this established continually offer specials to draw in new customers and take a page from Lime Crime’s page and be open to expansion and the feedback from your customers. Continually offering sales to attract new customers and providing top notch customer service will keep the existing customers for your own online business.
